cartoonist, was born in Sydney on 15 November 1948. He attended Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, Bowral (1958-60), Chevalier College Bowral (1961-62), Christian Brothers, Rose Bay (1962-63), the Independent School of Dramatic Art, North Sydney (1968-71), a National Institute of Dramatic Art Playwright Forum in 1973 and a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Professional Workshop at London in 1979. Cartooning, which he started doing in the Traralgon Journal in 1967, paralleled his acting career. In London he contributed to Punch and worked on the Australian Express for which he created the weekly comic strip Frogin (1980-82).
Returning to Sydney in 1983, Kemsley took over drawing the daily comic strip Ginger Meggs (in the Sydney Morning Herald to mid 2005, Daily Telegraph [Sydney] since then), a weekly (coloured) strip in the Sun-Herald that was syndicated to the US (et al.?). Some Days You’re A Legend.Some Days You Ain’t (Allen & Kemsley Publishing: Mosman NSW, 1995) was Kemsley’s fourth collection of Ginger Meggs comics strips, the first being published in November 1983. It was also the 39th volume in the Ginger Meggs series, which dates back to Jim Bancks 's first anthology of 1924 (three years after he created Ginger and the gang in the Sydney Sun ).
Kemsley was president of the Black and White Artists’ Club in 1988-90 and was elected a life member in 1991. Married to Helen Lorraine Perry with two sons, he lived in the Southern Highlands of NSW until his death in December 2007.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
